Upon first meeting Rachel Kricsfeld, it’s easy to understand how she earned a coveted spot on KU’s Baby Jay mascot team.
The recent KU graduate – who stands at 4 feet, 11 inches tall – had to keep her Baby Jay identity a secret for the three years she was on the team. In the midst of her work as a KU mascot, she was also active in Jewish student life. Kricsfeld graduated in May and earned degrees in both Jewish studies and visual arts.
Being under 5 feet tall and starting school as a dance major made Kricsfeld perfect for the role of KU’s Baby Jay mascot, which she did her sophomore, junior and senior years of college. One of five members of the Baby Jay team, she committed to a practice and games schedule of approximately 10-12 hours per week, depending on the time of year.
With five Baby Jay mascots (and five Big Jay mascots), the goal was for each mascot to move and act just like each other to keep the integrity of the character they were playing, thus, the secrecy. Baby Jay, though canonically three years old, actually was introduced in 1971.
Kricsfeld as Baby Jay in November of 2024.
“We want the students and everyone coming to the games to feel like they’re looking at Baby Jay instead of a student in a suit dancing around. It’s a big enough personality and character that it is an exciting role you get to be very creative with,” Kricsfeld said.
Wearing the Baby Jay suit is also difficult — it weighs nearly 30 pounds, is poorly ventilated and has limited outward visibility. For these reasons (and crowd control purposes), Baby Jay has another member of KU’s Spirit Squad accompanying them at all times. When another teammate would be in the Baby Jay suit, Kricsfeld would sometimes be the “bodyguard,” making sure that Baby Jay avoided problems like tripping on stairs, running into people, overheating or being harassed by unruly fans.
Kricsfeld’s Baby Jay engagements ranged from high-stakes Jayhawk basketball games in KU’s Allen Fieldhouse to celebrations such as weddings and b’nai mitzvah — she even put a kippah on Baby Jay at a bar mitzvah last year. She has also traveled across the country for mascot camps and for KU media opportunities.
A Jewish Jayhawk
During her college years, Kricsfeld was also involved with KU Hillel, KU Chabad and, most recently, Students Supporting Israel, a grassroots organization created to share information about Israel and what life is like there. Overall, she said her experiences as a Jewish student at KU were very positive and helped her become closer with her Judaism. But when Oct. 7 took place, followed by anti-Israel encampments on KU’s campus, she knew it was time to take action.
It began with joining in the counterprotests to the encampments to show the strength of the Jewish community in Lawrence and at KU.
KU graduate Rachel Kricsfeld holding an Israeli flag outside of a Students for Justice in Palestine encampment on campus.
“Then we quickly realized, if we come back every day, we’re just going to be shouting at each other, and it’s just going to be unproductive. It’s going to be a mini proxy war. So everyone agreed to let them do their thing… whether it was accurate or not,” Kricsfeld said.
After that, Students Supporting Israel put their efforts into sharing facts, debunking myths and making themselves available to answer questions about Israel around campus. The group held monthly awareness events, including tabling at Wescoe Beach – a central gathering spot on KU’s campus – on 9/11 to help others understand that Oct. 7 was Israel’s equivalent. One of Kricsfeld’s proudest moments from these awareness events was handing out bagels and cream cheese with signs that said “Spread Schmear, Not Hate.”
“We were giving [bagels] out to students and offering to have conversations about what’s happening in Israel. All we were doing was spreading love and cream cheese. Some of the other clubs, like the Students for Justice in Palestine, took more severe approaches to protest what they were believing, so we tried to keep it lighthearted and friendly, and I think it went over really well,” Kricsfeld said.
So well, in fact, that when KU’s student government presented a bill to label Israel’s actions as genocide, a non-Jewish student government leader defended Israel at a student senate hearing. As exciting as it was to witness the results of their friend-raising events, Students Supporting Israel were ultimately disappointed when the bill was passed in spite of the group’s efforts to demonstrate that Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism — and that KU student government was the wrong place to make such a declaration.
“Technically, student government believes that Israel is committing a genocide, but we showed up at those hearings and we had support from Hillel and Chabad,” Kricsfeld said.
“We spoke what we believed, and we left the meetings dancing and singing. So it was conflicting, but I think Hillel and Chabad did the most amazing job bringing our spirits up and making us realize that people are always going to think bad things, and as long as you’re happy and you know what you believe in, that’s what’s important.”
Kricsfeld points out that the Baby Jay coaching staff and spirit squad director were understanding of her Jewish life on campus. In addition to making accommodations for missing practices for Jewish holidays and the Oct. 7 vigil, they checked in on Kricsfeld after the war to make sure she was doing alright.
KU graduate Rachel Kricsfeld, one of the students who performed as KU mascot Baby Jay, with Baby Jay on the court at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kansas.
“I never felt scared to be loud and proud about my Judaism. I always kept my Star of David necklace on and occasionally would wear shirts with Hebrew on it, and no one ever said anything,” she said. “So overall, it was a positive experience. I think coming together after the war ended up being something really special despite the circumstances; it brought the [Jewish] community a lot closer.”
She also said more students than expected attended the vigil after Oct. 7, which was supported by all of the Jewish organizations on campus. She said it as a nice way to bring people together in their mourning. Yet the event provided something even more powerful for Kricsfeld.
“[It] also reminded us that through our unity, we become stronger,” she said, “and that’s the only way we’re going to be able to make it through all of this, mentally and physically.”
Kricsfeld will move from her home in Omaha, Nebraska, to Overland Park, Kansas, in August, having recently accepted a job at Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy.
Editor’s note: Chronicle Editor Sam Kricsfeld, Rachel Kricsfeld’s brother, was not involved in the interviewing for this article.
